Something to Tell You
Page 42
I sat at the bar with a newspaper, watching the intense delirium of the men who stared at Lucy. In her break, we went upstairs to Wolf’s old room, all his possessions having been removed by Bushy. To help Lucy with her English, I read to her, as I’d got into the habit of doing recently—but would do no more—passages from my favourite stuff: Elizabethan poetry, bits of Civilisation and Its Discontents, Dr. Seuss.
Not that she grasped much of it, but it made us both laugh, lying there happily misunderstanding each other.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
I am no longer young, and not yet old. I have reached the age of wondering how I will live, and what I will do, with my remaining time and desire. I know at least that I need to work, that I want to read and think and write, and to eat and talk with friends and colleagues.
Rafi will soon be an adult; I want to travel with him and his mother—if I can raise their interest—to the places I have loved, showing them Italian churches, and having dinner in Rome. We could see Indian cities, bookshops in Paris, canals in Hertfordshire, waterfalls in Brazil, museums in Barcelona.
I am not, I feel certain, finished with love, either in its benign or its disorderly form, nor it with me.
I shake myself and get up. I have been sitting dreamily in my chair for a long time. The bell has rung at least twice. Maria must have gone to the market.
I go to the door and let the patient in. He takes off his coat and shoes, and lies down on the couch. I sit just behind his head, where I can hear him without being seen. For a while he says nothing.
I empty my mind, aware only of my breathing and of his, as we both wait for the stranger inside him to begin speaking.